Michelin Outlines ‘On-Track Opportunities’ for IMSA Teams

Michelin has outlined the schedule of ‘on-track opportunities’ for IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Prototype and GT Daytona teams to sample its tires ahead of the 2019 season.

The French tire giant will become the “Official Tire” of IMSA next year, as part of a new long-term partnership that will also include title sponsorship of the Michelin SportsCar Challenge and Michelin Endurance Cup.

Speaking with Michelin Alley, Chris Baker, the director of motorsports for Michelin North America, said they held productive meetings with teams and partners during last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, as it works to ramp up its involvement heading into next year.

“As we shared with the manufacturers and teams at Daytona, we are working in close collaboration with IMSA to offer on-track opportunities during the course of the 2018 season to help them prepare for 2019,” Baker said.

The majority of the sessions will come on the Mondays following WeatherTech Championship events, in order to reduce costs for teams.

“We will offer invitations to representatives of each team and their associated vehicle or chassis manufacturers in Prototype (DPi/LMP2), GTD, Michelin SportsCar Challenge and LMP3 to run one car at each on track opportunity,” Baker said.

“Each team will be offered the opportunity to participate in at least one on-track day during 2018. Identification of the teams and manufacturers selected for these on-track sessions is being done in partnership with IMSA.

“These opportunities will help teams become familiar with our Michelin tires and our technical and race operations teams to help them prepare for 2019.

“They will also provide IMSA and Michelin with relevant data.”

It’s understood Michelin plans to utilize its newly developed LMP2 tire for the Prototype class, with its proven GT3-based option for GTD teams.

The GT Le Mans class, meanwhile, will remain an open tire format, although it is expected to be made up primarily of Michelin’s existing technical partner teams in 2019.

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365 as well as the recently launched e-racing365 Web site for electric racing. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com/SPEED Channel, and contributes to other publications worldwide. Contact John

16 Comments

16 Comments

daedalus

February 12, 2018 at 1:08 pm

I fully expect new lap records at all tracks next year. The Michelin LMP2 tyre is as good as the dunlop tyre which was over 3 seconds faster than the contis at the sebring test last year. Same goes for GTD as PWC GT3 times are over 2 sec a lap quicker on average and the michelin GT3 tyre is as good as the pirelli tyre.

I just hope they bring down the cost of tyres for the teams as they are usually the biggest single expense over the whole season.

Agree but some think the biggest cost is Laguna Seca and should be expunged from the series. I lament… glad Michelin is going to be back and is in front of the 8 ball by letting teams have some track time before the transition.

IMSA should just open up the tire manufactures for every class. Michelin and Dunlop both have extremely solid and dependable racing tires and there should be no reason why there needs to be a sole tire manufacturer for all classes but GTLM.

Bingo this is why the costs are somewhat controlled by having one manufacturer. Tire war means not sustainable model of racing. Sorry but there has to be some sustainability lets see how general inflation in the economy affects car counts in 2020 and 2021 but that is so far away who cares right, the economy is great and counts are up. Just enjoy the ride.

There are engine wars, chassis wars, aero wars, no BOP, open development (where you show up at each race with a faster car than the previous race or you get left behind), open spending wars where money is no object, and competition between full fledged factory efforts and the world’s greatest privateers to see who can build the best car.

Look at Aston Martin the last 2 years in the WEC. You can see how problematic BOP was having to consider tire performance. Most GT3 series are single tire except the Nurburgring 24 hours and teams flip flop on what tire works best there.